Apologies that this is late folks, I had a bit of a confusion yesterday but here we are. Sunderland at home tomorrow, in a game we really must win. With teams around us dropping points, we can capitalise and take a big jump to 10th possibly. I know 10th is nothing to write home about but its better than where we are. Sunderland are in equal amounts of shit, they sit a point below us in the table and also really need to win.
In recent years this fixture has been rather dull with last seasons game ending in a disappointing 0-0. So a goal fest it is. Sunderland to be fair haven't got much of a team with some high profile departures last season including the strictly "football-only" move of Gyan to the middle east. However with the acquisition of the worlds best footballer Nicholas Bendtner they should be doing much better.
Bendtner of course wont be playing tomorrow due to his loan terms. So that leaves them a little light upfront and I suspect they'll be playing Ji supported by Sessegnon. Both have been well lack luster so far but that can't last forever. Other threats include Lee Cattermole and Larsson on the left.
In Arsenal terms we have the return of a defensive trio of Djourou, Koscielny and Squillaci. So with Sagna out I would hope we will play Jenkinson that will be both a test and good experience for the lad. The article on Arsenal.com headlined Koscielny - I'm happy to play right back, did give me a scare earlier when I thought Wenger was going to do something stupid, but reading through I fairly certain the back four will be: Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Koscielny and Gibbs, right to left of course. The middle will be fairly standard with Walcott and Gervinho on the wings and RVP alone upfront as usual.
I really hate the international break, mostly because England play the shittiest, dullest and most tedious football I have ever seen (and I've seen Gillingham play). On top of that they throw games away in the last minute and piss everyone off. The other reason I hate internationals is the fact that Arsenal seem to almost close for a few weeks, nothing comes out of the club and that makes blogging hard.
The internationals hopefully gave the team time to go away and clear their heads. I'm hopeful that some time away will do everyone some good. However in the current state I highly doubt it. Everything about the club that we all love is crumbling and we need to stand tall and keep the faith cause at the moment it doesn't look like anything will change soon so we just have to hope something clicks.
There are two ways to look at the situation. The first way is the "optimist", we're currently in a blip and we'll pull through and everything will sort itself out. There are very few people that are looking at it this way. Then we have the "pessimist", which is that the very foundations of the club are being shaken and the club is on the verge of collapse, this is the much more popular view. I don't quite think the club is going to collapse, but we need to sort the defence and everything else and sort it soon. We're seeing the same problems week in week out and its frustrating, we can all see it so why can't the team and the manager. I can't remember the last time the Emirates had hundreds of empty seats every week and practically anybody at the moment can get hold of them, not that they want too because we're playing so poorly.
The only thing we as fans can do is get down there and get behind the team and staff. They need us to fall back on at the moment and we need too. Great support at WHL as always aside from the problematic chanting from both sets of supporters. We need to bring that support home and lift the players.
Anyway now that I've set out my one point plan of how to save Arsenal from impending doom and ensure we win the quadruple, on to some real news. Well surprise, surprise Vermaelen doesn't look as if he'll be back for Sunderland. We really need him back soon. Brighter news in the fact that Djourou and Kosicielny appear to be fit to play. So we have a few defensive options to go with, unfortunately I'm not entirely sure we have the combination of players to do the job but we shall see.
Check back for the Sunderland build up on Friday. Also shocking plug but please check out and like our facebook page.
COYG!
It's that time again, the derby. After the so called "friendly derby" today we have what everybody whose associated with Arsenal and Tottenham sees as the best English derby, myself included. Forget West Ham, Millwall thats a thugs derby. The hatred between Arsenal and Tottenham is unrivaled in my opinion and that always shows on the pitch. So many historic moments have come in the North London derby, the most prominent for Arsenal fans being '71 and 04.
Before I go on to look at teams there are a few things I want to say. I'm genuinely nervous about tomorrow and that doesn't happen often but I really am. Listening to the SSN panel I agree with them on nearly everything they're saying (for once). The pricks are firm favourites to win tomorrow for the first time since I can remember and I'm not surprised. We are going into this shot of confidence and about as defensively sound as Burton Albion. If we fail to get ourselves up, we could get embarrassed, so its down to Wenger to do his job and really get the team motivated.
Call me pessimistic but I can't see anything other than a Tottenham win tomorrow, now people will be quick to point out that they haven't had a blinding start and so on but the derby is different to every other game of the season. They know we're weak at the back and I think they'll really give it a go. It also seems impossible for Adebayor not to score, its written on the wall. If I was a bookie I'd have him odds on to score in the fear of losing a small fortune. That brings me nicely on to teams.
It seems that Song will have to start at the back as we're out of fit centre backs. Expect to see Sagna and Gibbs start on the sides. The midfield I think will be Ramsey, Arteta and most probably Frimpong to try and give us some power in the middle, that will bee a key area tomorrow. I look at their players in the middle and they don't have a big powerful midfielder to hold the ground and that could be where we will split. They'll play Modric, Parker and Sandro (I'd say) who are all relatively attacking, when we counter that's where they'll lack numbers. We have to play Gervinho and Walcott/Oxlade it will be Walcott but the point I'm making is Arshavin was absolutely shit midweek. He was lazy and didn't look bothered and in a derby all 11 players need to pull their weight and we all know he wont. RVP upfront as ever.
COYG!
Prediction: Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Arsenal
We return to Champions League action tomorrow night against the Greek side Olympiacos and we have already had some less than encouraging team news, more on that in a bit. Firstly Saturdays performance was just what we needed, a win and maybe more importantly for the defence a clean sheet. Surely that will help to boost the defensive confidence. RVP got a brace with the second being his 100th for the club, I was a little surprised to hear that as I felt he'd scored more than that but I then realised he has been blighted with injury for pretty much the whole of his career. An impressive count none the less. Hopefully we can build on that and string a few results together and go from there.
After a brief scare on Wednesday night, it was nice to see our young guns come back to boss the second half against Shrewsbury. Kieran Gibbs equalised with his first goal and a great header at that, much to the delight of the 45,000 fans who bothered to turn up. The stats people were flicking through their books after Oxlade scored his first goal for us making it two Englishmen in one game, a rarity for us. It was also good to see Benayoun score his first and the game was dead.
The weekend was a disaster. It certainly was a game of two halves, the first was us playing well and looking good to take the three points. New boys Gervinho and Arteta got their first Arsenal goals and two good ones at that. The only downside was conceding to Yakubu but overall it was promising. The second half was an unprecedented fuck up. After a suspect free kick was given the ball was chipped in without force or direction, hit Song on the knee and went in. Quite why the ball wasn't sent skyward or gathered by the keeper is beyond me. Moments later we were losing, the ball was smashed through our defence to Yakubu who was just offside to finish. Poor defending again. Another attack and we were 4-2 down. The ball slid into the box and Koscielny looked as if he could have been playing for Blackburn with the ease that he passed the ball into the net, 2 own goals. Pitiful. We got one back with a great Chamakh header and had chances to equalise and even win but we spurred them all.
Tuesday was a very good result. If you'd have offered me a draw I would have taken it, the defending was brilliant. Koscielny was piss poor in the first half giving the ball away and just generally playing poor. But whatever Pat Rice said at the half did the trick and he came out the second half and played a blinder as did the rest of the defence, we were throwing bodies in the way of shots and it was a real scrap, we were brilliant. It looked as if RVP's first half strike was going to be enough, but 2 minutes from the 90 Ivan Perisic scored a goal that as the commentator put it "will be number 1 if he ever makes a DVD". Top drawer nothing Szczesny could do about it. But overall a well earned point.
Blackburn pose a real threat this weekend, they are desperately in need of a win and Steve Kean is under serious pressure. Long gone are the days when this would be seen as a banker, now we need to scrap for as many points as possible. So in terms of dangerous players Blackburn have Nzonzi in the midfield, Roberts and Formica who can certainly strike a football. This said they were very lucky to get anything from the game against Fulham.
We have the return of Gervinho, Song and Frimpong all from suspension avoiding another red card would be good. I would expect to see a squad similar to the one we put out against Dortmund. Ramsey faces a late fitness test and is doubtful, Wilshere, Diaby, Squillaci and Vermaelen are all out for sure. I must admit if all goes well I'd like to see Park make his first appearance rather than bring on Chamakh who really has been poor lately. But we shall see what Wenger decides to do.
Form is with us on this one but form means nothing at the minute and we need to continue to take every game one by one and just focus on the one at our doorstep. That said I think we'll just sneak this one but it will be a hard game
Prediction: Blackburn Rovers 1-2 Arsenal
